Our October cover star’s latest role may be her best yet.

On a warm summer Friday afternoon, Elle Fanning takes refuge inside Pasadena’s Norton Simon Museum, touring its permanent Edgar Degas exhibition — one of her beloved out-of-the-way spots in Southern California. The actress could be mistaken for one of Degas’s iconic ballerinas: She has a dancer’s body, long and lean, and out of habit she sometimes pirouettes while she talks. Elle, 17, last came here to research a project for her art history class.

“I wrote about Dancers in the Wings,” she says, stopping in front of the painting, which depicts two young women preparing to go onstage. Or maybe they’re just coming offstage. Who can tell? When asked why this is her favorite, she cites the vivid colors and the level of detail, saying, “You can really see their faces,” which, she notes, is somewhat rare for Degas. But there’s more to it, she adds, pointing to one of the girls, smiling as she says, “She’s fixing her shoe.”

That a quiet, small moment like this fascinates Elle isn’t surprising. She has always understood the power of stillness in telling a story. It’s what makes her such a disarming presence on-screen. Whether she’s silently skating on an ice rink in Sofia Coppola’s Somewhere or meeting Angelina Jolie as the title character in Maleficent for the first time in an enchanted forest — eager, taking her in as she emerges from the shadows — Fanning reveals more in repose than most actresses do with reams of dialogue.

Her roles have been so demanding — a mute, an obsessive-compulsive, and a girl grieving over her lost brother — that it’s easy to forget she’s a “child actress,” until she reminds you that her mom dropped her off for this interview. Elle recently got her driver’s license but admits she’s not quite ready for the open road. This is where she’s at today: a woman on the verge. She’s got a memoir from Sally Mann, her favorite photographer, on her bedside table and a Princess Jasmine Band-Aid on her leg. She wears a strapless dress (with a massive Mickey Mouse appliqué on the skirt) from Paul & Joe Sister but carries a Miu Miu purse — a gift from the house of Prada, no less.

All that is to say, she’s a typical 17-year-old — albeit a famous one. That perfect moment of innocence about to fall away is on wondrous display in this month’s About Ray, in which she plays the title role of a transgender skater boy trying to convince his mother (played by Naomi Watts) to let him transition. Portraying the character was daunting, Elle admits. “I never thought about saying no, but I was so afraid to touch it. What if I don’t do it right? I know transgender kids — I am honored to help tell their story.” That was reason enough for a challenge. And so she dug in, speaking with trans kids over Skype and in person, asking questions but mostly listening. She pored over YouTube videos of teenagers in transition, recalling a particularly memorable one that cemented how important this project was: “Someone tracked their time using testosterone shots, and they were so excited to be getting a visible Adam’s apple. They started crying, and it just hit home.”

The work paid off in spades — and could potentially pay off with Oscar acclaim, too. Elle, who is ethereal and über feminine in person, is unrecognizable in costume, recalling Hilary Swank’s Academy Award–winning performance in Boys Don’t Cry. As Ray, short dark hair peeks out of Elle’s ski cap, and her breasts are strapped down with a T-Kingdom binder (which allows more circulation than ACE bandages, she reports). Elle also skateboards like a boss — the result of hours spent falling down and getting back up at Skatelab in Simi Valley.

But the emotional transformation has been even more impressive. Again, she electrifies with stillness. After getting into a fistfight, Ray proudly walks his school’s hallways feeling like he’s survived this very male rite of passage — only to be called a girl by a classmate. In that swift moment, Elle’s face crumbles. She should receive every prize imaginable for that breathless moment alone.

About Ray was shot in a little less than two months in New York during one of the coldest winters in recent memory. It helped that Elle’s older sister, Dakota — a student at New York University — was nearby, and the two could catch up over pizza at Rubirosa in Nolita. For Elle, now in her senior year, being away from home can be stressful. “I miss my friends, for sure,” she explains. “But I don’t think about what I’m going to miss. I just think about what I’m gaining.”

That’s quintessentially Elle Fanning: She acknowledges that life is about give-and-take, but she always clings to the upshot. While she has several movies scheduled to come out in the next year, she has fiercely held on to her time as a teenager, admirably maintaining a normal schooling experience (whatever that means). The professional world may be opening up to her in incredible ways, but she’s still a goofball—a girl as happy to talk about how she hasn’t washed her hair in four days (“I like taking baths!”) or why she can’t go to the beach with her friends (“I just peel and hurt”) as she is to discuss sitting front row at Paris Fashion Week or how much she loves Gucci, praising Alessandro Michele’s resort collection (“It’s very youthful—very girly and floral”).

But she seems to understand on a molec- ular level how rare an experience high school can be, how there’s a difference between playing a teenager on-screen and actu- ally, you know, being one. Earlier this year, she wrapped Nicolas Winding Refn’s The Neon Demon—a creepy Beyond the Valley of the Dolls–inspired story about aging female models feasting on the youth of her character, Jesse—but she insisted the production let her out for prom night.

“The whole set was
excited,” she says.
“They’re like, ‘Elle’s
going to prom!’”
Though she works
with stylist Samantha
McMillen (who also dresses Carey Mulligan and Mark Ruffalo) and surely could have borrowed couture for the night, Elle and her mom went to a bridal store, where she picked out—and paid for—a light pink strapless brides- maid dress. Why the classic approach? “You want to buy the prom dress,” she says. “You want to go with your mom and choose your own.”

For the record, though Elle went to the prom with a “friend,” she has since been linked to Zalman Band (the son of horror royalty Charles Band—the man responsible for the Puppet Master franchise). When I mention the two were recently caught together by the paparazzi, Elle will say only that the attention “makes us laugh a lot.” OK, does she at least like horror movies? “They scare me!” she reveals. “The other night I went to see The Gallows. It was terrifying. I was under a jacket the whole time!”

Like anyone with graduation on the horizon, Elle is looking at a million paths forward and wondering which one to take. In the past, she’s considered going to college, but Elle hasn’t taken the SATs or the ACTs, and she seems to have put the idea on hold for now. “I thought more, and I’m like, Eh. I don’t think it’s for me. That sounds weird because I feel like every-
body goes to college. Maybe I’ll just wait. I’m already doing what I want to do, so why can’t I just...?”

Her voice trails off. Maybe she’s lost her train of thought, or maybe she’s still working it all out in her head. Thankfully she doesn’t need to make a big life deci- sion today. Besides, as an actress she’s more in-demand than ever, and, this fall, she will play Bryan Cranston’s daughter in the biopic Trumbo, about a Hollywood screenwriter black- listed in the 1940s. Ask Elle about her dream director, and the answer is surprising: “Quentin Tarantino would be so cool,” she says, hinting that she’d love to kick ass in something like Kill Bill: “I love Uma Thurman.

She’s a fellow tall girl. I’ve never done anything like that.” Fanning would be prepared for it, though—she takes boxing classes with a friend (which she alternates with ballet and person- al-training sessions). Of class she says, “I really go for it.” She adds with a laugh: “I’m pretty strong. I used to beat up my sister so much. I’m the younger one, but I was always much taller and bigger.”

We’re leaving the museum when I realize I never asked Elle how she did on her Degas assignment, the one about Dancers in the Wings. “I got an A. And I got an A-plus in art history.” We never had a doubt.